A Study in Emptiness
by Servant of Fire
Summary: John notices a subtle "hollowness" in his friend, and then begins to discover its source.( Rated K and perhaps T in future for references to torture, and the appearance of some violence. For entertainment purposes only.)
1. Chapter 1 A Glimpse into Emptiness

**A Study in Emptiness:**

Is the glass half empty or is the glass half full? Or could it be as wiser ones have seen, that the glass is somewhat full of emptiness? Without love, the Almighty's intial purpose for life, souls turn to glass,and are filled with their own shapeless reflection...

John Watson never witnessed such a malady , in all the days of his medical practice, until he'd met Sherlock Holmes. And truelly there was not such a sadness that lingered on Ha Beni Adam (the Sons of Men) as ever there did this young man, on whom rested the fate of London metropolis, and even perhaps the world, one bitter December in recent history.

John entered their was a dark night, a cold and rainy night, and the wind sighed like RaHel weeping for her scattered children,because they are no more. He draped his coat over a chair,flipped through a stack of bills, and smiled at the skull perched at the end of Sherlock's desk as they "engaged in conversation"

"Evening,Sherlock, Caroline." (by whom he meant the skull, for Mrs. Hudson had insisted a name be given it, and that it be a feminine name to add a "woman's touch to the mold that is two bachelors' joint dwelling")

"Caroline, don't gawk at John,gawking is rude. Even though you observe that he hasn't phoned his sister, and he's lost his phone, presumably why he didn't answer my last message or phone said sister, and clearly he didn't finish his lunch this afternoon, and he forgot the milk , which never mind actually _I _ forgot it,and he is in a cynical frame of mind,because another woman has spurned him , yet another reason I maintain that romance is vanity. Hello, what have I got here? Someone phone Houston, we,ve a mistake."Sherlock spouted off all of this, never looking up from the chemical vials over which he laboured his case, sighing wistfully and examining a piece of bloody denim belonging once to one dearly demised anonymous.

"Vanity?" John challenged, irritated (but not at Sherlock) shook his head.

"Vanity, vanity all is vanity and vexation of spirit. Of the making of many murders there is no end, and much killing evidently brings great pleasure to certain of London who couldn't find better use for intelligence...How dull."

"Look who's cynical now, and it doesn't sound like me." John laughed. Sherlock did look up them, and in his eyes, for the first time, John saw it. The tragedy of the Modern Era. The ill that only love,brotherly and pure, can fix. The Emptiness.

Suddenly he was made of glass, and John could see right through him, and found that his insides were hollow. He was without form, and void, and dakness covered the face of a fathomless mind.

"So?" Sherlock scoffed, with a little sneer, and shrugged,going back to the valiant, though fruitless effort, of saving people who would turn like jackals to bones on him, at the slightest whim of the press. Living in the age that reads it in the paper, so it "must be true".

John was unsettled. Because he loved him. Because the love was real and returned. Maybe to the point of death. Enough to Fall from the Highest. He blinked ,taken aback, and silence fell with the weight of that troubled love. He sensed trouble coming, he sensed the echo of pain in the hollow ring of his words.

Before our story even begins John vows to save him. Not knowing that this Empty was a choice he'd made for John's own deliverance. And before we begin, we know already that they will save each the other, making it safe to proceed.


	2. Chapter 2 Caroline's Day

**Chapter 2: Caroline's Day-**

The following morning brought no ease to John's concern for his friend, but rather it itenstified with the Dawn, as if the light of the early morning glancing off their mirror, saw no reflection when Sherlock came rushing into their living room, like an autumn gale, ecstatic,muttering to himself as wind does through the lonely trees of winter.

He rushed to the skull and lifted it up, cradling it almost like a woman does her baby. "Caroline, darling!" he cried. "I promised you _did I not?I promise you that I would get justice,and for years you have sat on my mantel, patient as the Virgin Mary! Always waiting! No more,Caroline! No more waiting. Now I have evidence, variables, something to solve with!" John nearly dropped the tea pot, and slowly turned around. Sherlock cradled the skull "rock-a bying" it in his arms,chanting "Soon, soon,you shall rest in peace very soon,Caroline..."

"Wait..what now?" John asked, face gone wan. Sherlock looked up."She's waited on our mantel long enough for justice,don't you think? She's been waiting, even longer than I've lived here, now her day has come. Caroline's day."

"Sherlock,what are you talking about?"John asked horrified. "This really isn't funny, what have you come up with?, some kind of sick case for your skull, 'cause you've gotten bored? You'll get a case, just, stop that _it's ...creepy..."

Sherlock staired blankly at him. "I'm serious, John." John was shaking his head confused. "But Mrs. Hudson, the skull, I thought you named it, because she wanted you to?" Sherlock smiled, "I did. Mrs. Hudson wanted a name ,wanted a girl's name, conveniantly. What better name than her own? Out of respect for her, I stopped saying it aloud. But at Mrs. Hudson's request, I started again. It would be wrong to give her any other name than the one that is rightfully hers.."

John's jaw dropped. "So the skull, DID belong to a woman?!"

"Yes?"

"Did you know this woman?"

Sherlock grew quiet..."Yes..."

John felt sick..."How?"

Sherlock smiled. "Schoolmates. She dated my roommate. We were friends. She listened to me, despite that I sounded like a lunatic. My Caroline..." he smiled.

"Justice now. She's waited too long...The bloody denim I examined last night,is evidence from a murder that matches the description of the group of serial killers that took her life. I have something to work on,it 's been too long..Forgive me, old friend..." He staired into oblivion. Then looked up, smiled, took the skull under his arm. "Thrill of the hunt! See you later,John!" he winked, and clicked his tounge, and was out the door.

John stood in the silence of the room,feeling faint for a few minutes, before he was throwing on his coat.

"Sherlock,wait !" he shouted, and clambered down the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3 Sherlock Remembers

**Chapter3: Sherlock Remembers**

" Keep up, John!" Sherlock called from the street. John puffed,took several long,( and somewhat painful to the old ache in his damaged leg)strides and was at his side.

"Sorry.." he gasped, and looked sidelong at his friend. Now he understood somewhat better the strange "hollow" aura he'd been putting off, his cynical (more than average, maybe) mindset . But, there was obviously more on his mind than could be read from his eyes. Blue and green at once these were, like the surface to a lake of unknown depth; one could almost hear him calculating the same as one hears an engine idle, but could it be guessed what all he was pondering?

John looked again at the mortal remains of one "Caroline". Suddenly, he could put his finger on the feeling ,deep in his bones, he'd absently sensed every time she was present in the room, and their companion with the sea-deep eyes was not. It had always been nostalgia, with a tragic aroma to it. It had always been regret. The great emptiness in the eye sockets, had always been despair of the sunlight of the day of her justifying.

But that day had come, and the world was announcing it. The flowers growing from the sidewalks pealed ,like bells, the anthem of the march. Here comes the Detective, and his friend!, will they not open the doors of the deep, and let secret things out? Will not Pandora's demons flee before them? Perhaps, the Reader will find, these demons will turn and make a final stand. And Caroline our Damsel, must yet further be distressed, though ,fearfully, the moss has grown long and dark as shadows, on the shallow grave she lies in ,there in the English countryside...

"Ah, it's a perfect day to be the Day of Reckoning!" Sherlock cried, shifting her skull under his arm. Absently, John reached a finger, and placed it in the socket of her eye,trying to dredge up some image of a teenage girl, a college friend of Sherlock's.

"They were brown, her eyes I mean,if you're wondering." Sherlock said,and startled him. "Brown, and her hair was waves of brunette to match her eyes ;she looked just like Kiera Knightley, if that helps you at all..."

"Oh..." again, John was feeling sick. Sherlock went on remiscing, and suddenly John saw a side of Sherlock he didn't know existed. Or the ghost of a side that died with Caroline. A sentimental side...

"She wore alot of red, and she liked American brands, like American Eagle, bought all kinds of stuff when she went over there for foreign study. Was a social butterfly, and I think that was part of her ruin. She didn't know a stranger, and some people are better left as that. But Caroline was diverse, in the people she ran with, in the things she imagined and believed. I mean, she dated Reggie, my roomate,which..ach,I don't even wanna think about Reggie,(wonder how I even passed a single exam, his stupidity could've lowered the I.Q. of Europe entirely ,_anyway!) And she believed in the Science of Deduction, was actually my strongest supporter when I was creating my life's work. And that's why we have to help her now that she can't help herself. "I believe in you,Sherlock." That was the very last thing she ever said to me. So see, I must, I MUST, give her a reason ..to believe..."

John felt for some reason, like crying for this girl. He didn't know her. But Sherlock had. He sighed, like the wind passing through a mountain's teeth, sorrow that sent an ache like birthpangs, through Mother Earth's old bones, and down to the dear girl's grave.

"Today we are going back to where she died. To end this..." he said, face grown cold as if he were the Prince of Winter, and hailed a cab.


	4. Chapter 4 The Voice of the Blood

**Chapter 4: The Voice of the Blood**

An hour or so later, Sherlock pushed open the door to an old factory out by the Thames. Drew a deep breath, as if this place were very familiar to him, filled with personal memory as well as history of the great English city in which it found itself. There was indeed recent memory in this place,memory of suffering. Sherlock had been tortured by the hands of criminal hosts, and ,unbeknownst to John, bore faintly the marks in his body, and more obviously in his mind, for the torment had been psychological. And continual; it was becoming an evening event, the meeting place for Sherlock and his opponents(who as of yet haven't made an official appearance in our narrative ,being as they appear only out of convienence, and the murder of Caroline Blackwood would be a matter of inconvenience for them, if, God forbid, the police were provided the proof it was they who performed it) And brutal; a sort of torment so brutal in fact, I cannot disclose it in this narrative. Brutal torment in the palace of his mind, of which he handed them the keys, and had agreed to play this game, to win it, to trap them in it, to rid London of their ilk. If he wins, they will kill him. If he loses, they will kill John. And John had been the motive of his agreement, love being the most vicious of motivators on earth. John had been the one for whom he had endured brutal afflictions, in the self -same room, that his dear schoolmate had brutally died. John had been the one for whom he had emptied himself, for whom he had sacrificed his soul, his eternity, all to this Emptiness, that would claim him, perhaps even across the dark waters of the River -That-Runs- Beyond-the- World , unless God Himself, and the Messiah His Son,(the Crucified, Who alone understood Sherlock's pain) intervened. Sherlock's lungs were heavy with the scent of the all too familiar room. He felt as though there were no tunnels filled with moonlight, nor Radiant-Gates-of-the Sun beyond the Vale of Eternity. If there were,then maybe he would not come into the Kingdom after all. But he vowed on the blood of Caroline Blackwood,that John would enter in. Caroline ,atleast, had believed.

"Here it is, John..." he said, and went, and stood in the crinsom stain, the river of her life that long ago ran dry,in the center of the room."This is where she died..."

John swallowed a lump the size of the gravestone her shallow grave was yet lacking, and whispered, "And why...did we come here?"

"To leave a message." Sherlock said,and laid the bloody piece of denim on top of Caroline's stain eternal, and then he pulled forth a note, scrawled in bold ink:

"Mirror ,mirror on the wall, blood will tell things after all. I know what you did, and I'm ready to prove it._Sherlock Holmes."

"Oh, God. Is this safe?"John moaned.

"This _guarantees_ our 'll just have to trust me." he swallowed, and staired at the spot on the floor, like he could hear her talking. He lifted her skull, as if to let hollowed eyes see. "Look,...It's all been arranged...Only a little longer now!" he said to the hollow old skull.

"Will you not- _explain_ to me what the devil is going on?!" John gasped, exasperated.

"Exactly, the devils are "going on" which is why we have to head to St. Giles...I said it once, I'll say it again,you're going to have to trust me..."

And again out the door he went,and John with a sense of dread, glanced once back at the bloodstain,having heard the whisper of her life too, and knew that if she believed, he must believe too...


	5. Chapter 5 Ring Around the Rosey

**Chapter 5: Ring Around the Rosey**

"Sherlock, really, we've been running around London all the bloody day! And I have no clue what you're looking for, or if we are in danger of being killed, and you haven't told me _why_ Caroline was murdered, and none of this is making any sense!" John cried, and scaired some pigeons, that blew back Sherlock's raven hair,as he sat at a bench there in Hyde park, deciphering the code they found in the old and somewhat eccentric part of London they had gone earlier.

Sherlock continued ignoring him, and tilted the note to the skull. John staired at him hopelessly, as if he were talking to a photographic image of his friend.

"So am I invisible? Sherlock,I'm _talking _ to you!"

"-Tommorow night it will happen in Regent's for sure, out by the pavillion I'd imagine, or maybe along the zoo, to add a Vatican zest to it..."

"What will happen?Hello, you forget I was here?..."

"And by plotting this move, I can plot the next one after that,and the next one after-"

"HELLO!" John cried.

Sherlock looked up."What's wrong with you?"

John coughed to keep from screaming at him."Sher-" he couldn't finish the sentence, and his face had gone scarlet, and he held up a finger as if to tell him to wait, because he wasn't done chewing him out."Sherlock,..."he gasped..."WHY did they kill Caroline?"

Sherlock scoffed,"Like they need a reason..."

"What?Who are _they_?! Sherlock, for the love of God, what is going on?!"

The desperation in his voice finally inspired a response from Sherlock. " They are a group of serial killers, operating solely for sport by a "Code of Murder" they developed in a "sorority" ,if you will, type of club at the school Caroline and I attended. When she caught wind of it, she tried to inform the police. They liked to keep a low profile the "silence of the lambs" as they put it. Do you understand now?"

John knelt infront of him. "Yeah, well I understand that much.I - I would like to know..." he laid a hand on Sherlock's knee, as he was turning back to unscrambleing the cipher he'd picked up in the shop in the old St. Giles area. Sherlock looked up, confused by the tone of John's voice. He sounded scaired, and his nerves were generally steel.

"Are you ok?" he asked,his face was white, brows were knit, lips were even beginning to blue.

"Dear God, John! I should be asking you that question!"

" I mean, are these people after you?..."

Sherlock didn't answer. He'd been dancing the "ring around the rosey" dance with these killers now for months ,trying to keep John safe from them,playing with their fire,trying not to light all of London ablaze ,like in the days of long ago. He'd so far been doing a very good job of keeping it a secret.

But if this was the Day of Reckoning, then the secret things were going to have to come to the didn't realize the expression that must've crossed his face, but it evoked an almost panic ,anxious response from John.

"Sherlock,...don't repeat St. Bart's...please...Are you ...s-safe?"

Sherlock swallowed..." I've been meaning to tell you..."


	6. Chapter 6 End of Games

**Chapter 6: End of Games**

John staired in disbelief when the explanation was done.

"You, you would, do that?...for me?"

"Would I? John it's not that I would. I _have_. The deed is done. And now they're coming."

And to clarify _they _are Alice and Company. The group of serial killers that Sherlock and the author both have already referenced, the group that severed Caroline Blackwood's life from the circle of the Sons of Men,of the Sons of Dust.

John closed his eyes, " I can't... I can't _ believe_ you...First St. Barts, and then you take me back in after my wife divorces me over the press. All leading up to this.."

"Forgive me if you can..."

"FORGIVE you?!- why do I need to forgive you? What have you done wrong?!"John stood up,and if his face was blanched before,it was white as the cold stars ,burning away in the abyss, now. He was absolutely mortified. But how does one take the news,that the man his dearest friend,( knit with his soul , more closely than Jonathan and David of old had been, perhaps even they) had given his legacy, his eternity,that virtue more precious than his phsycial life, and that being the life of his soul,and had allowed himself to be as empty inside as the hollow echo off the walls of the Void,to save your life? Exactly,no one can bear such news. John's heart was collapsing, like a ship drowning in the waters that bore it up, he could feel himself drowning in his veins.

Sherlock slowly stood, face grim,and reached and pulled slowly from his coat,a large brass pocket watch in the shape of an owl's face. A harsh,recorded voice sang out in a mocking tone, "You're late... you're late for our very important date,...No time to say goodbye,for you must die, you're late, you're late, you're late...!"

He crunched it in his fist, weary of hearing that mechanistic voice proclaiming his fate, like the Proctor of Hell.

And that's when John heard Alice's voice behind him,

"Good afternoon, Sherlock. I see you've brought Caroline's remains. A good luck charm, for the finale?"

"Caroline was human, not a piece in your games. And I brought her bones, because I made her a promise, and by God I will keep it!"

"Then we shall begin. Ah, John! Good of you to join us, and better that you can watch!"

A group of men in black masks and chainmail began to circle the woman ,around Sherlock and John's ages, in a frilly blue and white petticoat dress, with long platinum blonde braids, and mascara that Pharaoh would find vain. John felt a pang go through him as he recognized her face.

Because this was the woman who had most recently spurned his interest in relationship,altered by costume, but still clearly identifiable. The woman from his office, whom he'd invited to coffee and she'd laughed him to scorn. She smiled at him with crinsom painted lips."I'm not your type, darling, didn't I say?"...

"Sherlock?"John asked,backing close,protectively.

"Today you die, Sherlock Holmes."said Alice, and lifted two great chains, to perform her cruel and unusual violence,that will not be described in any vivid detail. Sherlock acted like he would fight, stepping forward. With a clean sweep of his arm, John had Sherlock behind him.

"No, not today. Today Caroline's blood willl have it's justice, "he said. "And today you will answer for the things you have done. Today will be the end of your games."


	7. Chapter 7 The Gates of Saint John

**Chapter 7: The Gates of St. John**

The fight was lost on Sherlock as sometime near the middle of it Alice's chain swung into his head, and he fell in a daze at John's feet,letting the soldier take up the torch for a while.

Her skull rolled out of his hands, and was stairing him in the half- dreaming eyes, for a long moment, before he surrendered to the darkness in his soul,hearing John's voice shouting over the others like the helmsman over the wind.

And when all was dark and quiet,and passed from the storm, to the abyss his own heart had become, by reason of abuses, she was there, as ever she had been, in the ruins of the palace of his mind.

He woke lying on the ground, to find her lying beside him, on her stomach, arms folded, girlish lips curled inquistively,large dark eyes searching him for sign of life. "Yoohoo, are you home ,Sherlock?"

He laughed,"Where is that, you tell me?"

She smiled sadly. "Anytime I come to this place, here you are..." he muttered.

She rolled over on her back,and stretched, curling a brow at him. "Ofcourse..."

Sherlock noted she was dressed in red, and a stone washed pair of American brand jeans. Just like she'd been when they were 19 years old, and alive.

"I'm going to get a conviction for them, you'll see. I'll prove the Hyde Park Assault was actually attempted murder.I'll prove the St. James Square murder, the Drury Lane Assault, The murder at Dicken's House...All of it.I'll send Alice away down her rabbit hole ,in chains, just like I promised you..."

She smiled. "Oh, I believe you..." she laughed, fingerng the grass beside her. The landscape of Sherlock's mind palace was more like Ireland, for whatever reason. Somewhere not so far away,the ocean crashed like the tears his broken spirit could not weep for her.

"But," she rolled over on her stomach again, and smiled at him. "But, don't become so involved in justice, that you forget mercy. Don't let the burn of death keep you from having a life..."

"What are you trying to say, Caroline?I- I have a life..."

"A life's work yes,and you have done a marvellous job, and I couldn't be more proud of you...But your life isn't a what,it's who...Don't become so hollow, so carried away with life, with the ebb and the flow of the tide, with the demands of this greed fevered, media crazed generation, with the answer to your riddles,that you don't enjoy the mystery of it all...Don't forget why you do what you do...Who it's for..."

"John..."

"Your John..." she laughed.

"My John.."

She smiled."But,...How do I get to him? I feel like I'm standing behind a glass wall. In the bottom of a fishbowl,or at the bottom of a sea of no water...Emptiness engulfing me,.I can't escape myself. I'm not human, but machine...Gave up,my humanity..."

Caroline laughed..."Oh, I have faith in you.."she chuckled. "You can do the things no one else can. You can be what no one else can. You've transcended, because you gave up your soul. You loved...Love isn't what we take, but what we give, what we lose, so that other's can keep it...My gift was my voice. Someone has to die, for justice to be done to those who's hearts already had murder in them. Your gift is your eyes. You see everything...Now I ask you to do something for me, because I can't anymore. Give me a reason to believe. See a way that I can't see, out of this meaningless Empty. See the Light... See, and believe. Have faith for me...show me the way to resting in peace."

Then Sherlock could see a light in the darkness,a star in the shadow,and he told her,even as he began to wake up..

"I was in darkness all my life, until the star of the morning came to live with me on earth. John Watson is the Light of my eyes. The motivation...If I believe in silver shores,or streets of gold,if there is life after the cold knife of murder, if there are gates of white marble somewhere beyond the world,then he will lead the way. Nothing else calculates...If I believe, I believe in him..."

He heard Caroline's soft laughter as he surfaced from out of the Emptiness, under a tree in Hyde park ,late at night. John very near by.

"Remember me, when you come into your kingdom..."

"No, Caroline, you're going to be there too..."


	8. Chapter 8 Through the Looking Glass

**Chapter 8: Through the Looking Glass**

John held his breath,hearing this dialouge between the dead girl,(who's side of it he didn't hear) and Sherlock,(who was talking in his sleep). He had laid him under a tree there in Hyde Park, to tend the wound to his head, and his own minor injuries. The events of the day swirled about him, like a flurry of snow falling into a fog, no clear sense but that of cold and dread, and that feeling one has when they stand in a vieling wind, lost and alone, as if they were the only soul that ever drew the swiriling air. John was dazed, like a fish lying in the sand, could scarcely breathe. Who was this Alice and Company? What exactly was the purpose of their actions ,other than to kill for sport? Why did they want him dead, and why was Sherlock having to be tortured to keep him from harm? And Caroline...

John could feel the back of his hair standing up ,whenever Sherlock was silent, listening silence, weighing her words, measuring response. John could feel her, in the same way one can feel the shadow of a bird over head before his clear song glides through the feel her like the overcast of a palm, the rattle of the leaves, like soft breath and could feel her, like he could feel Sherlock when he thought he too was gone.A sense of looking "through a looking glass", a sense that your loved one somehow has fallen down a rabbit hole, and is having adventures in a far away place, that only a very thin screen of glass is keeping you from passing into.

A sense that the reason they killed her - (for squealing on them, (or trying to) ) , a sense that her last task on earth, was somehow not yet complete. That she was somehow assisting Sherlock in the final proof of her own murder, and like it was connected somehow to a fragile web of events that could brings Westren civilization down like a house of cards...

And of course this was more than just a sense, it was a very thin reality,much like the fabric that knits together both the mist of the early morning, and sows shut the lids of sleep. An invisible dust settled in the air, as if the Angel of Death and the Sandman were both one and the same, and were scouting the path before them, the time for the harvest of the wicked, drawing as close as the feet of New Year's Eve...

A hush fell over the Park, as if the dialouge was concluded, as if there had been a meeting of confidence amongst the angels ,and now they moved to perform their Godsent purpose.

Sherlock woke up, and John felt Caroline's shadow pass from the Park. Sherlock sat bolt upright with an empty cry. Ocean- eyes filled with the rains of lost worlds, very sad and full of memory, and the concious of murders lying under stone till the Trump of the Last Day.

He cried out again,more softly now, like the wolf's farewell to the evening star, realizing what he had to do. He blinked, coming back from the Land of the Dead, himself once dieing in a sense, having free range of that realm now. His eyes cleared as if the storm had ended, and he swallowed.

"They got away?" he asked, and John sighed.

"They were scaired away...By someone possibly more evil than themselves ,if you can imagine."

"Oh, indeed I can, and it concerns me deeply...John, I think it's time we pay a visit to the zoo in Regents,...I meant to do it tommorow night, but I believe the Count is getting hasty..."

"You want to go to the zoo?..N-..now? Sherlock,it's closed."

"Exactly." Sherlock said,hauling himself wearily to his feet. Again John saw that hollowness, as if he were a solid piece of glass, painted over to look like human flesh. He held out a hand to John, who looked at it ,fearfull it would break,before taking it.

"Alright, we're going...to the zoo.." John shrugged, following him out of Hyde Park, and north into the night.


	9. Chapter 9 Vatican Dances

**Chapter 9: Vatican Dances**

"Sherlock," John gasped, this day seeming to stretch into eternity. They were in the back of , trying to slip through a fence of the London Zoo. But he'd rather curl up into a man-sized fox-ball, and go to sleep, for a thousand years. Maybe when he woke up, this would all be a scary dream. In the morning the skull on their mantel, would be a plastic mold from a science study, used only for Sherlock's strange anti-social habits. In the morning young Caroline would be alive,and perhaps come for tea, and Sherlock would greet her as the long- lost friend that she was, and they would talk of all the days gone by, and then again she would float away like foam on the water, and all would be still and well again. But this was not a dream. Sherlock was digging a small hole under the fence to the Giraffe cage. Sherlock had a piece of John's shirt tied around his head for a bandage. And John still had no real idea what was happening. Why a young girl's life was the fulcrum for the balance of life as we know it? Why his dearest friend always had to take the Fall for him?...

"Sherlock..?" he said again, sighing sadly like the ocean on the sand. Like the fingers of the ocean, reaching over and inbetween the bars of it's prison beneath the sky,bound in by shores, he felt like he was always reaching for Sherlock and the dark world in which he seemed to live alone, but never could get to him.

"Please tell me what's going on..."he begged. The sound of his voice must've been like despair. Sherlock looked up, a brow raised in concern. He swallowed.

"It's going to be alright, John , just trust me..."

" I do, I trust you,...but .What .is . going .on?" he grit his teeth ,determined to have an answer. Sherlock stood up, and went to John, and took him by the wrists, and looked him straight in the eyes, and began to explain his plan.

"The torment they've been mentally inflicting on me_I did tell you didn't I?" ( a look of sick horror crossed his face, momentarily)

"You did.."John swallowed, trying to get him back on subject ,nodded fervently.

"Ah...well, I believe this group of serial killers, are also a team of professional chemists, seeing as that was what they were all majoring in when we were in school. I believe they are using a modification of the drug mist from Baskerville, to take hallucigenics to the chemical warfare level...They tested the prototype in Caroline's murder. They tested a modified form on me... I believe they plan to test a stronger drug than the two before on the animals in this zoo. To create in them a madness that could be used in a mass murder ,with no traceable guilty parties, tommorow morning when the zoo doors open. And how could there be a more perfect murder?Like the Caesar's of old, watching the lion's devour their victims, and not being guilty of murder, because the lions killed them out of insanity...Never mind that insanity was caused, how could they prove it?"

John laughed, "If anybody can, you can." Sherlock smiled. He clutched John's wrists more tightly then.

"You should know, I am still under the influence of these drugs myself...When we go in there, I may be a very diffrent person than the one you know...Don't be alarmed..."

John clutched at his wrists in turn..."I'm with you every step of the way." he said, reassuringly. Sherlock had a crease in his brow ,deep as a chain-gang's ditch. His anxiety was visible, and that wasn't like Sherlock Holmes...

"Right." he let out a shaky breath,and let John's wrists go,and went and slithered under the fence. Reached and pulled John in behind him.

The madness they entered!_

The dances, the mad beating of feet,the cries of the animals!The beasts were going to war, dancing the battle dance, to bring up the moon from her pale grave in the heavens, to call down the stars to fall from their thrones. Sherlock drew a heavy breath, and tensed, like a bird startled on the perch, listening..waiting...

"It isn't safe, John...you should get out.", he whispered.

John took him by the hand, his palms sweating, and fingers trembling. " I'm not leaving you...Remember, whatever you're seeing, hearing, feeling, it's just like Baskerville, all in your mind..."

He nodded, eyes wide as silver dollars. And the tiger roared, and leaped on his perch,and the Vatican dances officially began, as monkeys began to march forth like Gladiators, and the parrots chanted with the voices of Rome...


	10. Chapter 10 The Wounds of the Angels

**Chapter 10: The Wounds of the Angels**

It was in that dark night, when madness was the law of the city,that John decided Sherlock wasn't human decided that ,depsite what he might have said, he was an angel.

Because in his fear, he didn't flee to save himself. He threw himself in front of John, when the tiger leaped down, claws first,to dance the dance to raise the moon, up from her watery grave in the sea, up from her resting place in the Day. And the jackals howled, and the flame of their eyes, as their glaze lit the night, was hot as hell fire, and it set on course the steps down to the pale and empty place where the moon sleeps. And it seemed as though the moonlight shone apoun the beasts, and fanned their madness, like a breath from the billows, as if a cry came from the stone in the heaven, as if the moon, like a terrible Wraith-Queen, rose up in cold fury, and set her eyes apoun them, and they despaired of life, and in their despair they danced the dance of the bitter damned.

The moon marched to lead the wolves to war, they cried, hollow as the horns of the deep, and the shadows under tree and display of the London zoo, rose up, wraiths standing on their tombstones,beating the ground without sound, and shapeless wings fanned the winds of poison. And the reptilian creatures of the hosts,rose up on horned feet, and reared their heads, and under the power of the hallucinigen,( that seemed only to affect both Sherlock and the beasts, but left John unscathed)dragons of the Ashen Waiths of Hell they became, shapes growing in the dark, or clothed in the darkness that was growing.

And Sherlock and the tiger, fierce in the bold jet bonds, caged in by his great black stripes,danced the dance of the madnesss of Alice's chains...Danced, and under the pale eyes of the Heavenly Queen Without Mercy, under the eyes of the moon, John saw the scarlet of Sherlock's wounds,and gave a cry,and searched for some means of stalling the creature,setting Sherlock free of him, without killing them both.

And then John, motivated by the madness that love is, climbed the trees that served as a play pin for the monkeys , and there in the tree, like the Deceiver of Eden,was laced a great boa constricter. John took him in hand ,like a cat-o-nine, and with a cry ,leaped down on the tiger's back, and wrapped the snake around its great throat. Slowly, it began to choke, and it's eyes bulged, and with a pained cry, Sherlock tore his flesh free of its claws,and rolled on the ground, looking up in horror at John's rodeo with the great cat of legends. He gave Sherlock a desperate look, eyes bulging as if the snake choked him, looking at Sherlock's wounds, with the eyes of a doctor, not fearing the severity of them, _knowing_ it. Sherlock forced himself to stand back up, calculating a way to end the war,that would give the Harvester of Souls, free accsess to the citizens of London, in their recreation, when the sun was given rise.

And then,there it was. The sprayer that irrigated the live plants in the displays! Of course, so strong a toxin Alice and Company had developed, it would have to be dilluted in water..." The operating system for the sprayers!" he cried, and John understood.

"You're hurt!" he cried.

"I'm- I'm fine...we have to do this! Many lives depend on us!"

John closed his eyes, and let go, rolling off the cat's back. Sherlock rolled, head -over- heels to him, and collared him, and they crawled all the way to the maintenance room of the zoo.

"Ok, to disable this..."Sherlock put his fingers together, trying to calculate how. John took the axe for the fire extinguisher,and swung it right into the control box,sparks flying everywhere.

"Breaking it works." Sherlock said dryly. And John threw the axe to the side, and puffed, watching as the beasts wound down, like the plug had been pulled on their surge of power.

Sherlock's gasp of pain broke John's train of thought. He'd slid to the ground, spread out, like a fallen angel,with wings torn off by tiger claws.

"Ohhhh, you're hurt..let me look..."John moaned, and knelt beside him...


	11. Chapter 11 Everyday Soldier

**Chapter 11: Everyday Soldier**

John shuddered. He was bleeding more than he cared to admit. He pealed out of what was left of his shirt, and began to staunch the flow with 's eyes followed him, still dazed from the fever of the drug that was passing away.

" I need to get you to a hospital!" John cried.

"John,that isn't a good idea." Sherlock's face had turned pale as if he were the child of the merciless moon, her wayward son she had neither love nor pity nor patience left to cradle, in the night of death's dark shadow. His eyes were like oceans,troubled seas, casting the life in pale greens at their center, scraping the deeps to give all that was left in last effort, before he slipped away.

"Sherlock, you are hurt more badly than I care to tell you.."

"If they tested it here,what's to keep them from testing it on patients, and on my account? I won't put innocent lives at risk to try and save mine!That isn't right.."

"You need medical attention!"

"No!,I need, I need you..."he was spacing out, clutching at John's forearm...John cocked his head frustrated ,and taken suddenly aback.

"Sherlock.."

"Have..have I ever told you?..You're like a brother to me... even more than Mycroft is, and he's my actual brother... And..I uh...I love you, John. ..And I'm mmm very concerned for your safety... I can't put you or any one else at risk, you least of all...Please, don't take me to a hospital. You were an army you can help me in a pinch? If you have to hurt me, that's fine, I'd rather pain without anything to relieve it, than..."

"Shh!" John gasped, laying a hand over his mouth, having heard all he could today. This whole day had really been a shock to him as to how deeply Sherlock really did love him. How deeply he loved him back. " Oh, God..." he gasped,shaking his head. "Sherlock...I'm- " he got choked up..." I love you too...More than you realize, I think. And you asked me to trust you,now I need you to trust me.I have an idea..."

Sherlock swallowed, "Is there anyway you can put your shirt back on? It's so cold out here..."

John couldn't help himself,he burst into tears. "It won't do me any good now, you've soaked it with blood!"

Sherlock's mouth fell open, suprised. "I'm fine..." John said,shakily.." I have my coat still, remember? it's here on the floor next to me. Now shut up, and hold still, you're going to make it worse, if you don't."

He pulled the coat back over bare shoulders, and then gently lifted Sherlock onto them. Sherlock laid his head on his shoulder, almost childlike in his dependence. Which was unsettling to John, Sherlock, vulnerable? Sherlock? It was alien, Sherlock was "Superman",he was always the one saving the day. But what happens when Superman's in need of saving? Superman just might need an everday soldier now. John could be that for him. He had a plan of action, and he was moving out.


	12. Chapter 12 Last But Not Least

**Chapter 12: Last But Not Least**

John's idea turned out to being ,carrying him all the way to the ambulance hub at the back of Middlesex hospital, (stopping frequently to check the staunch to make sure he wasn't bleeding to death). In the wee hours before the morn, John broke into the back of an ambulance, and set to work .

John was in denial, but Sherlock was now in very critical condition. He had bled too much. He'd been hurt before it happened. He'd been tortured brutally before so it shouldn't have come as a suprise, not to an Afghan veteran army doctor , when he flatlined. It shouldn't have come with near panic. But this wasn't just another patient, his best mate was lying on the table, and said best mate that had a few hours ago, admitted to sacrificing himself for him repeatedly in the last few months. John was in a frenzy, and in a lonely place, by himself with the basic corpse of his dearest friend, and only the sound of the electric waves he cast forth in vain, to wake his sleeping heart.

He started screaming his name. It hadn't been more than 2 or 3 minutes when he started loosing his mind. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad, if it hadn't happened before, Sherlock in a bloody heap, lying nerveless before him, and he powerless to do anything, or so he felt.

John was shutting down himself, having fallen,and hit his head on the wall of the ambulance, when she came. Somewhere in that twilight of Sherlock's life, a door had opened between the world's ,and there stood Caroline just as she had been. John felt his throat close,as she stepped over him, sat at Sherlock's feet,and collared him.

"Oi,you!"she called , tenderness mingled with severity of tone." What are you doing? You can't quit now! We're so close to being free!"Still no response. He was loosing faith.

" Sherlock. Get up. Your task is not done. Not yet. I WON'T let you take this lying down. Sherlock...please remember...I believe in you. I have always...believed."

Sherlock gasped, like the very first time he had ever breathed. And she smiled down at him, in pure delight, much like his mother had smiled, when she heard his first cry. He coughed, head spinning, coming down from the whirlwind that had nearly carried him away.

"C-c- caroline..." he gasped...

"It's me..." she laughed, cradling his hand ,holding it to her cheek.

"Caroline, I'm sa-I'm so sorry!" he rasped, voice hollow, hardly getting air.

John wept when he heard that voice,that was mesmerizing to him at any given time. He had the voice of a king, and it was the most beloved sound to John on earth, sweeter than music.

Caroline smiled again, mischievously. "Finish this." she commanded, and winked. Turned to John, a brow raised, lips parted as if labouring to breathe. Then she smiled, and the smile broke John's heart like the fall of a house of mirrors, for here was a face , a human face, a girlish,beautiful face to go with a skull.

"Get him back in the game, John. It's almost over now." she nodded, and then passed like mist into the night.

John clambered up off the floor,"Sherlock, SHERLOCK!" he shouted, and went to him, checking his vitals. He was still bad off, but he was stable.

"J-John...did you see..did you see... oh she's gone again, isn't she? Gone forever..."

John gasped. "You were almost gone forever too!"he cried, and scooped him up into a long embrace.

Sherlock held him in return, and it was his turn tonight,to burst into unexpected tears...Tears atlast for Caroline. John took his face in hand ,in suprise, never really remembering seeing him cry before. Saw the emptiness in the silver- blue ,green atmosphere of his eyes...

" I've never been able to weep for her, John...I guess...I guess we're almost free if the tears are coming now after 14 years..."

John smiled, "She said it was almost over now.."

"Did she? Does she talk to you too,John? Oh I miss her. The likes of me, highly functioning sociopath as I am, few friends ever do we make. Amongst the living, you are the only one. All the others were murdered..."

"You had more friends that were murdered?"

Sherlock smiled..."Well, you can see now why I wanted to be a detective... Somebody had to do something..."

"But there were more, more than Caroline?"

"Oh yes. I stopped saying their names, but I never forgot them all. Caroline, James, Michael and Destiny...My handful of friends... And I have gotten justice for all of them, save one...I MUST set her free John, even if I have to walk as a dead man for awhille... You are the last but certainly not the least, Caroline, dear Caroline...I will, set her free, even if I have to drag my own skull in hand!

"Not today you won't...Lie down..."


	13. Chapter 13 Through the Eyes of the Beast

**Chapter 13: Through the Eyes of the Beast**

A hour or so later, right before dawn, screams of hollow agony echoed off the walls of the apartments down Baker Street.

"Shush,shush! Hey,mate,you're alright!" John's voice could be heard over the storm of the strain in the kingly voice.

The wounds from the tiger's claws had torn into Sherlock's chest,right around the top of his shoulders, and he had bled a great deal, even having flatlined for around two and a half minutes,but even that was not the chiefest of their concerns. For the tiger's claws had been coated with a laquer, like nail polish, of the posion, and the nature of it's influence was to cause the victim visions of terror and great pain. Legions of demons swarmed Sherlock's bed, like a sea of wraiths, white as the spray of the cold North sea, grey as the winter rain. He cried, and cursed at them, tearing at things, fighting the shapes he saw,throwing books, and knives ,and shoes. John had to force him back into his bed,many,many times. And then when Sherlock saw John he'd wrack with sobs,having already seen him die a thousand diffrent ways."Oh, God.." John moaned, when he was crying so hard he was shaking, rocking back and forth like a tub on the tempest.

"Easy, mate..."John said, climbing into his bed atlast,and laying down with him, to keep him down."Easy, it's alright..."

Silence for a long moment,then John said,"This is so unlike you, Sherlock. Come on, you know all of this is only in your mind..."

Sherlock heard his voice, and cried all over again, wrapping his hands around his head protectively, " All that they've done to you...My friends, each one taken by the cold fist of murder, and now- now you...closer than a brother, God not you...not John..."

"Sherlock, for the LOVE of God, it's all in your head!" he took Sherlock by the face." It's in your mind..."

Sherlock's eyes lit up, the blue of them bright as lighting under his tears. "Mind, in my mind...I have the keys to my cage..."

"Yes!"

"NO,NOT YOU!" he sat bolt upright, eyes on fire, as if the blood of the earth set fire to the sea, raven hair standing about his ghost -wan face, like the cloud of the storm stands over the valley." I have the keys, I have the secret... I have the skull, I have solved it !"

"The, the skull?"

"My last piece of evidence, yes! Her brain, John! They kept it, after her murder,to study the effect of the posion that killed her, what it will do! Of course it was all in her mind, that is the key!-ach!" he cried, and his hands went to his aching head, and John took him by his wrists...

"Not you.."his voice was quaking, like tremors through the bones of the world. Mother earth was ready to give birth, and the grave was ready to surrender her soul. Caroline's time had come to be avenged. Sherlock's pain and wrath began to bleed from him, like fire from the mountains veins, when the new island appears from the secret place in the sea. "I SWEAR NOT YOU!"he growled, teeth barred like he were changing shape,from man to wolf of a colder country than the land the living inhabit. "I shall set Caroline free of the monster...Free of her prison in the body of the beast. You see it, -it all points to Baskerville! Poisons of illusion, animal testing? Where better than Baskerville? Why kill a good thing when you've got it? And what better place to hide it from under the eyes of myself ,Master of Reason,than a fairytale creature! All of it stands! The proof is behind the eyes of the Hound of Hell!"

John's mouth gaped, but Sherlock was suddenly taking him by the face..."I swear on the soul of Caroline Blackwood...Not you. I'm- I'm going to save you. You will live, and continue to be the Light. You will come into the Kingdom of the Sun! I will save you from the monsters, from the darkness, from the shadows that I bring, from the shadow that I am...I will save you, today! The sun is rising!"

He leaped out of his bed again, pulling on his coat, pulling out his phone, to use it to buy a train ticket to take him atleast half the way to Baskerville. He had to get there by tonight. He knew that it was tonight, that he would finally do it. He could feel it in his bones. In the skull she left behind, perched on his mantle, emanating the residue of the life she drained from it when , like mist, she did depart.

"You can barely even stand!" John cried, horrified.

"Then I will fall to my knees, and walk on them!"

" And when you can't any more, what?Are you gonna break into a treasonous military fortress,and bust a ring of serial killers- on your knees?!"

"If I must."

"BUT YOU CAN'T WALK!"

"THEN I WILL CRAWL!"

He turned to John, face a mask of graven stone. "Try and stop me."he said voice low like thunder over the fold.

"No,that'd be a waist of time...I'm coming with you."


	14. Chapter 14 Burning of Wonderland

**Chapter 14: Burning of Wonderland**

"So ,now it will end." said Sherlock,as they walked again through the old mine riddled woods, where their last case here in Baskerville,had literally ended in a blaze of light.

John stood speechless,behind him. He was walking, half bowed over, hands clasped as if in constant prayer. He was walking like a ghost goes to his grave, thirsty for sleep, longing for the end of Emptiness.

The journey down here had been frightening for John, for Sherlock's eyes had glazed with madness, and more than once. But he had fought it bravely, all the live-long day racing the demons of a Night, only he had seen, for his eyes saw everything. And now literally, it can be said, EVERYTHING.

He swung his hands like he were swiming through the souls of all the murders both past, present, and yet to come. He solved every one, and his lips were parted in thirst, thirst for their justification.

Atlast he reached the place, where the wielder of the illusion of the "hell hound" had met his firey end. He spread his arms like the wings of a raven, come to roost on the field of battle, amongst all the slain of visions. There he stood, and threw back his head, like a wolf howls to the sky.

"ALICE! I'M CALLING YOU OUT!" he shouted, and the four winds heard him, and rang the bells of hell, to signal he had come. "Now I know what you've done. I will finally admit, once, I was wrong. I said there never was any hell-hound. Well, there wasn't in the case of that particular case. But there IS a hound of hell, a creature alive only for torment and amusement and tests. Bring forth the science experiment you have created! Bring out the mutant made of borrowed pieces! Know this, behind every Frankenstein's monster, was the sisters and brothers, and loved ones and friends who's pieces made the machine! And you will surrender every piece of Caroline's soul you stole to me! Even if I have to tear it from the monster with my own hands, I will get back every last piece of Caroline's soul you took away!"

John felt his heart skip a beat, as Alice came out from under the trees, like she was the witch that lived in the woodland, and ever had been waiting." Ah, Sherlock, so you finally found my Wonderland..."

"I found the place of damnation you created, yes."

"And have you come to join me in Paradise forever? Come to be with your sweet little Caroline?"

"I've come to take back what you stole. Caroline is not here, nor will she ever be. All you have done is used pieces of her life to create a monster, not really alive, only a machine of organism...Caroline is an angel, and she has always been with God. But now she,and God Himself, will have their anger put to rest, and dry their hollow tears. And the devil will finally have his due..." he took three great strides,and leaned over her, eyes glittering in the twilight..." I've come to burn your Wonderland..." he whispered.

Alice sneered, and whistled, and the big, black hound, looking like a dog of unsual size, everyway dog- like but with strange translucent eyes, came forward.

"No, you have come to die. You have nearly died, already." she gasped, licking her black lipstick painted lips.

"You have come to watch!" she cried, jabbing a finger at John. "That's what you do is watch, isn't it? Watch,and do nothing, whilst he dies. Tell me, didn't you even try to talk him down from that rooftop? Did you try to catch him when he fell?"

John made a sudden move of wrath like madness, and Sherlock threw an arm out to stop him. For he had scaired the hound, and it leaped to protect its mistress.

" Careful,..it's not like any other animal you've ever been around. It's been given the brain cells of a very clever girl who died a very brutal death that started in her brain ,by the posion that gives fear shape. It'll outsmart you if you aren't careful. Trust me, I knew her..."

Alice smiled,"There is pain, very real pain in your voice,Sherlock Holmes...Good, that means my partners and I have have completed our scientific study with you!"

"What study?!"John cried, fighting with Sherlock's arm, angered beyond reason.

"If machine's can bleed. If monsters can feel pain. We wanted to see how much of him was machine, and how much of him was man? And where the diffrence can be manipulated..."

John cried, and tried to leap forward, Sherlock's elbow goading him back." And where was that?!"

"His heart we found..But it proves even then, he beat us. He has no heart. He is hollow. Burned it out of himself, to save you, John. So then he is neither machine, nor man, nor even monster left to speak of. There is only this hollow shape before us. Mirror, mirror on the wall, you are nothing after all!"

John had heard enough. Something snapped inside him, and he tore past Sherlock, and the beast reacted all the same. "John, wait!" Sherlock pulled out her chains, "You came to dance with the devil, now you have to face the music that you chose!"


	15. Chapter 15 Caroline's Flight

**Chapter 15: Caroline's Flight**

John's mind was a whirlwind, so furious he had been, he didn't feel the sting of the hell-hounds bite, nor taste the posion till it hit his veins, and then he was so angry , no fear could move him. But he passed into the Empty world where Sherlock and his angels lived, could feel the shapes of the murdered without justice, as they warned him with wan faces, "Go back, son of Adam, son of dust!Turn now while you can. The Empty you enter has no return..."

A hundred voices said that, but Sherlock's voice said above the murmur of the murdered, "No..."

John looked up, even as a wave of mist rolled over him, threatening to take him down into the madness that was this poison.

"Wrong." Sherlock said. And John saw him, crawling, on stomach and elbows, crawling, blood pouring from his lip, crawling just as he said he would crawl.

He crawled right up to the Hound, and siezed it's head. "There will be a return...John, Caroline, You will give back what you stole... And maybe I won't come to the Gates of White, but they will make it...They will..make it..." He began to grapple with dieing grasp with a beast scientifically altered somehow, to be nearly as clever as himself.

John rose up, swimming in the posion. Through the dieing of the light, he could see Sherlock dieing.

And all this time he had been trying to save John. But John had vowed, that he would save him.

Secretly, before they had left their apartment this morning, he had taken his pistol with him,(hadn't forgotten it in his haste this time) knowing that the end of this would be violence.

He saw there was a mad spark of life in the eyes of this beast, an unwanted fire, fueled by the keen brain that had once been Caroline's..

There was only one way to save Sherlock now, and that was to see his task done.

"Caroline..." John whispered, and from out of the swirling mist of this otherworldy battlefield, she came.

"Here, John."

"Are you ready to be free?"

She smiled..."There's only one way to free me.. Release him from this burden, John.."

"I mean to do exactly that."

John lifted his pistol, aimed...Oh what a risky shot! But one an everyday soldier could make...

Sherlock leaped back in suprise as a bullet when through "Caroline's" brain. The beast fell on it's side with a low moan.

He spun around on his haunches, to see John and Caroline standing side by side.

"Now she is free..." John whispered.

And Caroline went and knelt infront of Sherlock. " All these years you've been trying to save me...But Sherlock, all this time, it was you, you that needed saving..."

He gasped..."Caroline..."

"Shh,"she laid a finger to his lips. "This carcass is your evidence...Now I am free... You've kept your promise...And he will keep his...Let him save you...And let me go..."

"Caroline..."

"This is not goodbye. We shall all meet again one day, over the River, and through these woods..." Then she stood up, and her eyes glittered like the morning star,well wishing the reign of the sun. And she smiled, and a light shone on her face, from a place they could not see.

"I see God..." she whispered, and then, she wrinkled her nose, and smiled in farewell, and took off running, turning back to give Sherlock one last reassuring glance, she ran into a white light somewhere in the woods,and was gone forever, but not the last time...

Sherlock looked up at John, who was slowly walking towards him,

"Atlast, I see the Light..." he muttered, and passed out cold.


	16. Chapter 16 Resting in Peace

**Chapter 16: Resting in Peace**

Shortly after Sherlock passed out, John used his gun, and the carcass of their secret weapon, to get Alice and Company on their knees. Lestrade was phoned, and thankfully happened to only be an hour or less away on other less important business. The proof was all right there, and when Sherlock could be rousted he explained, everything like this:

"It's quite simple really. I'd say elementary but that word sounds wierd, old, blah, it even feels funny on my tounge, anyway. This lot here, like killing their favorite way of doing that is through driving up the heart rate causing it to fail, with fear inducing hallucigenic drugs. This is how they killed my dear friend Caroline Blackwood. And when they had done so, they saw it as a test, as prototype test for perfecting a drug that could kill people softly. Make them see what they wanted them to, feel what they wanted them to feel. Manipulate behaviour..."

"They tested it on him!-been torturing him for months, just look at the shape he's in, he, he flatlined, HE FLATLINED!"John cut in, agitated beyond control of himself.

"It's alright, John...As I was saying,- They were creating the prototype that they planned to be able to release in missle form, as the next generation weapon of chemical warfare. They've already had the weapon advertised on the market and have been discussing sales of it with Al Quaeda for months...This therefore could be a case tried not only in our courts,but in the UN courts as well, being as it is a crime of international level..."

Lestrade smiled..."Sherlock Holmes...You've done it again...Now go home. Get rest. Grieve for your friend, finally."

Sherlock shook his head, "No, I'll never grieve for her again. She is resting in peace at last...But I will miss her..."

John smiled,"Mirror , mirror on the wall you are human after all.."he laughed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, as his face crumpled near tears of nodded gravely. "For God sakes take him home, John!"

And so John took Sherlock home, to the house on Baker seemed after everything goes wrong, somehow the two of them, against the world, always end up back in this over.

There was a trial,and conviction, Alice and Company got capitol punishment.

And the shallow grave of Caroline Blackwood was found in a knoll near a landmine, there in Baskerville.

And they finally had a funeral, that droves of people came to. And finally, after all these years, Sherlock gave the skull back, and they buried it with the rest of her.

And I have forgotten to tell you, and it seems you should've wondered at 's seeming abscence, through all of this. Certainly she would have heard all the commotion upstairs, and came running,the night Sherlock was so violently sick? Well, she was on a lovely holiday in Bavaria with was blissfully ignorant of all of this.

And one cheerful afternoon, about 2 weeks after the whole thing went down, she came home to find Sherlock and John sitting in their living room. Sherlock was sitting on the couch with a huge book of chemistry, John in the arm chair with his computer, and they were doing what they do best, discussing some puzzle, trying to solve it. She stood and staired fondly at them for a moment, like a mother admiring two grown sons, noticing Sherlock was a little pale, and John looked as though he'd been under severe stress, hair standing on ends, and thin in places,(as if maybe he'd pulled some of it out).

"Hello, boys!" she called,and they looked up suprised. "Mrs. Hudson!" they cried in unison, and came and embraced her, as if she'd been gone for years..

"Oh, dear, I hope you both are alright. Sherlock, you've not been eating, your pants are fitting too loose. And what's this on your shoulder? you've been getting in trouble again, - and I told you to be more careful, young man!"

"She _did_ tell you." John interjected, pointing a finger in his face, about to give him some long winded,"I'm -very-slightly-older-so-I-know-more" brotherly type speech, when collared him, and he turned ,stammering."And _you_! What did I tell you about stressing yourself till you chew your nails off,and pull out your hair?John!,it's so unneccesary, I-!" she paused, took one of Sherlock's hands, and oneof John's hands in her own. "Boys, I was only gone for 3 weeks...Couldn't you have behaved for 3 weeks?..."

"Uhhhhh..."John cut Sherlock a warning look, and he clamped his mouth shut, like a clam over its secret pearl. "Oh, no, We couldn't behave for 3 days even."

"Nor 3 hours." John added.

"Scarcely 3 minutes.."Sherlock rolled his eyes ,like that was obvious.

"Under 3 seconds, surely we could pull it off for 3 bloody seconds, Sherlock?"

"No, hardly..Sorry,Mrs. Hudson, dear."

She laughed, looked around the room..."Oh boys...But ?...You cleaned the house? Well that makes up for it..."she laughed delighted. Then a puzzled look crossed her face.

"Where's Caroline?"

Silence rolled over the room like a heat wave. John looked at Sherlock,knowingly. Mrs. Hudson had never seen such an openly sorrowfull expression on his face before either.

"Oh, she's gone on her own holiday. Isn't coming back..." he smiled, and then said to John , "Now about that, I think you were on to something with the whole, dying the hair, and burning off the fingerprints thing..." And they went back to work...

Mrs. Hudson felt a strange sense of puzzlement , and turned away admiring their cleaning, checking for dust. Saw the newspaper on Sherlock's desk. A picture of the skull on plastic with Sherlock, John and Lestrade standing next to it.

**Caroline Blackwood Cold Murder Case Solved. Detective Gets Justice for Old Schoolmate...Details pg. 3...**

"OH! OH, Sherlock..."Mrs. Hudson quietly gasped,coveringher mouth, looking sadly back in his direction.

So much of his strangeness,his distant,almost cold way with people, so much of his coarseness and that hollowness, and the shadow about him,so much of everything that had been a marked irritance about his person made infinitely more sense in that one Holmes, it turned out, proved to be a deeply misunderstood study himself, one that if people took the time to look, might provide more than the empty, almost machine like, calculating personality one might perceive. As it turns out, he was a man after all, and one that bleeds.

But seeing him with John, she realized, atleast, somebody understood. Somebody didn't have to, to accept him as he was.

She smiled,thinking maybe his veins were done weeping for a while, and he too could rest in peace...

**~The End~**


End file.
